How one atheist sees life

On Orchids And Intelligent Design

Here we see an Orchid. They are part of a 100,000 plus variants or species of the flower. Like any life on this planet the various species have evolved to thrive in their environment. Like many forms of life on this planet humans have cultivated them (changed their environment) in order to change them to be more suitable in some way for humans. Every time that we see them in the shop we don’t think ‘oh, it’s a cultivated orchid’. Rather we think about how beautiful they are, how delicate they seem, how genuinely frail and wonderful they are. To be certain, they are all these things and more. All that changes if they start growing in a corn field. That makes them a weed: a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants. Perspective is everything.

Philosophies are like this. There are hundreds of thousands of them, most of the ones you know about are cultivated, shaped by humans to be more palatable or useful. Some of them grow like weeds, thriving in their environments. The human mind offers bad philosophical weeds a fertile environment in which to thrive. Once there the human will cultivate it and work to make it grow and fall victim to the wonderment of its beauty to them. They seldom realize that the beauty of the bad philosophical weed is cultivated by them and for them, competing with the philosophies which will sustain them and help them thrive. The philosophical weeds soon choke out the good philosophies we want and need to cultivate and grow. This is not through malice. It is because we humans don’t like to change the environment that our philosophies live in very much. Change is difficult. In fact, left to our own devices humans have shown themselves to be very poor philosophical horticulturists. When it comes to thinking clearly few of us seem to have that envied green thumb. These weeds, like all weeds seem to do, spread far and wide to every niche they can find as suitable to thrive in. That’s what happens when life evolves to survive. It is very opportunistic with little or no long range planning.

It might be said that an intelligent designer might have planned that so we could all see the beauty of such weeds as orchids or some such drivel. If we carry this analogy through, an intelligent designer wouldn’t have designed our minds as such a fertile place for bad philosophies. An intelligent designer would know that bad philosophies should not be designed such that they are beautiful to behold. It seems almost maliciously purposeful that the human mind, if designed, was designed to be a fertile environment for bad philosophy. It seems shockingly bereft of logic that such a designer would turn out to not have a green thumb, unless you consider that such a designer might think bad philosophies are not weeds, and is cultivating them in human minds. If there was or is an intelligent designer it sucks at gardening or its idea of beauty is detrimental to the well being of humanity.

It took me a few minutes to really understand this, as it has depths in the layers of it that have great meaning. I know the intelligent designer part of it will go right over the heads of the monotheists. However what got me was the idea of the proliferation of all the many philosophy’s, many not only crowding each other out but actually positioning the soil they grow in for each other. I wonder, as a gardener I know that different flowers and crops grow best in different types of “fertilizer”. I wonder what types of fertilizer the worst ideas of philosophy grow best in…and can we restrict it for the good of all people? ? ? Hugs

God designed evolution. In the end, He will save the righteous, and the wicked will be discarded. The ones who chose wrong did not deserve to be saved. God prefers quality over quantity.

[Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.”

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'”

“‘An enemy did this,'” he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'”

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'”]

Matthew, thanks for commenting. You’ve started your comment with an assertion that neither yourself nor any human can prove to be true. Parables are clever yet this one says that your god has an enemy that corrupts his efforts. Your god is claimed to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. If such a being has an enemy it is because he wants one to blame things on. Now why is it that your god wants or needs an enemy running around ruining stuff? What is the parable that explains your god’s desire and need to have a satan around?

Oh yeah, he’s not going to tell you that part is he? With all that you believe you have no evidence or reason to think that the book you worship is not created by that satan to fool you.

It seems to me that the “intelligent” designer perhaps wasn’t very intelligent because his Intelligent design doesn’t seen to be doing so hot right now. And I really loved the comment that seemed to know what Good loves and doesn’t love. This is God speaking, “I really don’t like it when people put words in my mouth I Didn’t say!”

Intelligent design proponents and creationists both have one thing in common; both make me laugh when they speak. Something is definitely wrong with your argument if Bill Nye can school you. Yes he’s more brilliant than most people suspect, but still… it’s the 3rd grade science teacher.